


under all silences

by ipso_facto, mastress (ipso_facto)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-18 22:09:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3585840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ipso_facto/pseuds/ipso_facto, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ipso_facto/pseuds/mastress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He almost loses her at Haven, and the grief he feels seems somehow more real than all the fears that came before. When they find her, she is half-buried in the snow, her body cold, her words a whisper dying on her lips. His are a prayer murmured into her hair as he holds her close, shares his warmth, uses his life to bring her back to hers. In this, at least, his body is enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	under all silences

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to [mellyflori](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mellyflori/pseuds/mellyflori) for the encouragement and the sanity check. This wouldn’t be here without her.
> 
> Title from [e.e. cummings](http://gladdestthing.com/poems/being-to-timelessness-as-its-to-time).

What Cullen cannot say with words, he makes up for with his body. Words have never come easily to him, even as a child. But his body, _that_ is something he can control. Something he can work and stretch and build until it resembles the form he imagines. Varric is good with words. Things he can say with a simple flourish of his pen might take Cullen a lifetime to write with the planes of his body. But what is it worth, a lifetime? Somehow all he has done has not yet been enough. If only he were a little faster in Ferelden, a little stronger in Kirkwall. Instead of grief, he feels anger, uses it to push himself harder. Grows until he is faster than Ferelden, stronger than Kirkwall, until he thinks that this time, just maybe, he can save them all.

He can sense her watching him sometimes: from beneath an overhang when he drills with the troops or inspects requisitions, from under lowered eyelashes across the war table in their endless parade of meetings. He stands a little straighter when he notices her, swings at the waist a little more gracefully when he puts his hands to the hilt of his sword. He can feel her admiration for the way he moves, the hours of drilling and training, this thing he has worked so hard to build, and it warms him. It feels like hot breath on his skin in the dark, fills him with thoughts he should not entertain. But in the quiet watches of the night, his hand twisting urgently on his cock, he knows that in spite of the shoulds and should nots, he wants to grant her petition to worship, wants to get down on his knees and worship her in return.

He almost loses her at Haven, and the grief he feels seems somehow more real than all the fears that came before. When they find her, she is half-buried in the snow, her body cold, her words a whisper dying on her lips. His are a prayer murmured into her hair as he holds her close, shares his warmth, uses his life to bring her back to hers. In this, at least, his body is enough.

After Haven, she is different somehow: quieter, more subdued. She moves as if no one is watching, but the truth is, he knows, everyone is. She lets her magic speak for her, travels the countryside closing rifts and killing demons, but her smile when she laughs does not reach her eyes. Still, they go on treating her like their savior, like she can heal the world, and she raises her hand to the sky and lets them.

After Haven, he wants to tell her that he sees her even if no one else does, that he knows the things she cannot seem to say with words or body, but when he tries what comes out is, "if," and "perhaps," and "you have my word." She does not seem to hear how his lips are screaming out her name, how his fingers almost (almost) spell out "love" when he moves his markers across the map at her command.

She comes to him, once, after a long time away in Orlais. Catches him in a moment of weakness. He confesses to her his battle with lyrium, finds a way to tell her in words all the ways his body has betrayed him. He promises to her that he is stronger than he seems, that the pain is not much, that he can endure it, and somehow, in this, it is easy. But the words are half-true at best, and the lie will not come without cost. When she leaves, he is trembling, a fine sheen of sweat broken out on his forehead, carving trails down his spine. His heart is aching. Perhaps he has not told her, yet, of all the ways he might be betrayed.

The moment he kisses her it's like water through a dam, and they are caught in the inexorable tide. He kisses her, and she lets him, and he knows, now, after all these years: his body has been made for this. For parting her soft lips with his tongue, for cradling the back of her head in one hand as he claims what is his. He is powerful now, and his body has a purpose, so he pulls her flush against him, silently wills her to find written on his limbs all the months of words he has been unable to say. She reads him like a book, responds to his touches with shivers and sighs that leave him desperate, leave him wanting. And when she pulls away to return to her duties, the look she gives him over her shoulder tells him that once again his body has succeeded where his words cannot.

Between her travels, they steal quiet moments together on the battlements, his hands gripping tight to her hips as he licks hungrily into her mouth. Her fingers tangle in the hair curling at the nape of his neck, her nails scraping her claim into his skin. This is a silent battle they fight, a struggle for power that cannot play out in any other arena. But she is at a disadvantage. Her weapon is her heart, and she does not yet know how to wield it. Although she grows stronger and more confident with every day that passes, he has spent a lifetime honing his craft, and she will need much to overcome him. From these embraces, they part only when he decides it is time, his smile sure as he notes the flush in her cheeks and the catch in her breath. Only when he is back in his office alone, doors locked and trousers sagging around his thighs as he comes over his own fist can he acknowledge that perhaps she is the one who is winning after all.

Still, he waits. There are monsters out there that she must slay, and in his own heart there are demons that yet live. The lyrium steals his muscle and robs his hair of its luster. One day he wakes to find that the pain is so bad he cannot rise from his bed, and when she comes to him, he has no choice but to turn her away, no matter how much he wishes she would stay. There are parts of himself he is not yet ready to bare, and the anger in her parting words is painful, but not undeserved. She gathers her dignity around her like a cloak and leaves for the Emerald Graves that same afternoon, does not even send word to say farewell.

Unexpectedly, though, it is Dorian who cares for him while she is gone. Who refills the pitcher of water next to his bed, who pulls the blankets up to his chin with a small, kind smile. And when his body is wracked with spasms, it is Dorian who tells him tales of the majesty of Tevinter to take his mind off the pain, who smooths a cool hand across his brow when the fever is at its worst. Dorian's words are a spell and he falls into them, dreams of golden halls and gleaming white cities, and wakes to find the pain has passed.

He cannot hide his surprise that the mage is still at his bedside when he comes back to himself, and he can tell that his thoughtlessness wounds. He blushes and stammers his way to an apology, but Dorian just shakes his head and gives him that same kind smile, pats his hand and tells him to take care of himself because _she_ needs him. And without her they will all be lost.

Dorian's words have power, but Cullen knows his body has power, too. He has worked too long and too hard to falter now, and as he heals, he resumes his training with a will. Soon he has all of his old strength back and more. But the reports of her journeys grow darker, and a new fear grows in the pit of his belly, spreads dry brittle branches into his heart.

When she finally returns, his chest feels so tight it might burst, and it is all he can do to keep from lifting her in his arms and carrying her to a place where she can rest. She looks slimmer than he remembers, more fragile. And impossibly, his chest tightens more, overflows into his fists which strain against the leather of his gloves as they curl in on themselves. She carefully avoids his gaze, but when he gives up and looks away he can feel his spine itch with the familiar sensation of being watched.

That night, she comes to him. Appears in the shadows, and tells him, her voice thick with unshed tears, of all the people she could not save. She recites the names of those she knows like a prayer, shares remembrances of those she never did as if she were there, and he tugs on her hand gently, pulls her to him and folds her into his arms. She buries her face in his neck, shakes with silent sobs, and the fear in his belly takes on a new life, twisting into thick vines and spreading outward, taking him over from the inside.

He knows in his bones that although she wields her weapon like a master now, if it - if _she_ \- were to break, the Inquisition would be powerless. Knows with a certainty he can't explain that he would as well, in spite of the muscle and steel. But the worst of it is that she must fight their demons for them all, and he, he who relies on his body, who has always wanted for it to save the world, must be brave enough to let her.

Later, when they fall into his bed, limbs twining around each other like rashvine, he does the only thing he can think of to do. With his body, he writes his story on her skin. He tells her of Ferelden with his fingers in her cunt, of Kirkwall with her mouth wrapped around his cock. The stories of his siblings and the lake near Honnleath he saves for later, when he is buried inside of her, their foreheads pressed together, moving as one. He opens for her completely, and wraps her as soundly as he can in all the pieces of his damaged heart, asks her with his tongue to use him like armor against the world.

And she gathers them to her with sighs of pleasure and says, "yes," and "more," and "Cullen," his name like a song on her lips when she comes.


End file.
